Homes are dangerous places for children. Children fall down stairs, stick forks into electrical sockets, climb onto countertops, put metal objects into microwaves, turn on gas stoves, operate electric hair dryers on wet floors, hide in freezers and front load washers and dryers, open medicine cabinets, and pester old dogs. New parents soon become safety conscious.
A staircase is especially dangerous. The staircase itself is enticing. It offers a place to slide down. Or, if an open staircase, it is a cliff off which to hang and drop. What is beyond the staircase is further fun. The staircase may lead to a dark basement. Or it may run to a strangely lit attic.
Some rooms can temporarily or permanently be off-limits to children. One such room is the kitchen. For example, the cook may not wish to watch where he or she is walking while carrying a hot dish in glass bakeware from the stove to a counter top.
To minimize some of the above problems, a child safety gate may help to keep a child out of a certain area. The child safety gate may be positioned at the top of a staircase or at the bottom of a staircase. The child safety gate may be positioned between the living room and the kitchen while dinner is prepared. Or the child safety gate may be positioned at some other location in the home.
One problem with the child safety gate is its very nature: it is a barrier. For example, even an adult has difficulty stepping high over the child safety gate, an activity that in itself can inflict serious bodily harm. To minimize such high stepping, many child safety gates have an easy open—but child proof—gate so that the older child or adult is minimally burdened by the barrier.
Moreover, those who cannot speak of their problems often suffer great inconveniences from a child safety gate. For example, small dogs cannot jump over or squeeze through the child safety gate like a cat. The small dog, therefore, must suffer from 1) lack of attention from a small child because the small dog cannot—because of the child safety gate—gain access to the child or 2) too much attention from a small child because the small dog cannot—because of the child safety gate—get away from the child.